'Bloodgate' and pasta sauce
This week we will be mostly concerning ourselves with the lessons of 'Bloodgate' and pasta sauce…
Welcome to Loose Pass – our weekly assortment of tickled fancies and disjointed thoughts. This week we will be mostly concerning ourselves with the lessons of 'Bloodgate' and pasta sauce…
Another week, another decree from the high offices of the Rugby Football Union, with their latest offering outlining measures to restore the reputation of the game.
Like alcoholics, rugby players must now embark on a 16-step recovery programme that will guide them past that joke shop near Clapham Junction and on towards a new and better way of life.
Our favourite edicts include: (2) fabricating blood injuries is a big no-no, (4) feigning injury is poor form, (8) illicit drugs should not be used, and (9) neither should performance enhancing drugs.
We look forward to next week's pronouncement from Twickenham. Inside sources inform us that it will detail how rugby players are often seen in shorts and sometime get muddy during games.
Joking aside, some of the points raised by Lawrence Dallaglio and his 'Image of the Game Task Force' are worth serious consideration, particularly the thoughts on replacements and the “consistency of global sanctions”.
Let us hope that words can now morph into actions.
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The 16 -step programme hogged the week's rugby headlines whilst another measure proposed – and actioned – by the RFU went largely and lamentably unnoticed: Brian Ashton is back in the fold and has been tasked to guide and develop the coaches of tomorrow.
This is significant. The appointment of the former England boss could prove more valuable then any given 'Task Force', regardless of how many luminaries it may contain.
We sometimes forget that the vast majority of rugby players are just kids. Professionalism has robbed most of them of the rounding experience of further education and/or employment outside rugby. Consequently, minds and bodies are given free rein to wander between training sessions.
Saracens boss Brendan Venter recently warned of the dangers of PlayStation marathons, empty afternoons and lazy minds. They act as the gateway drugs that have led many a soccer player to the docks, if not ruin. They now threaten rugby.
It's not beyond the realm of possibility to suggest that Sarries' recent upturn in fortunes is down to Venter's pastoral instincts and his determination to guide his charges to interests – real interests – that lie beyond Vicarage Road.
Like Venter, Ashton is one of rugby's good guys. If there's a more decent Englishman in rugby, we have yet to meet him.
Publicly humiliated and sacked from his position as head coach of England, he did not throw a tizzy and run howling to a publisher. He simply withdrew from the limelight and went back to his passion: nurturing young rugby minds at Bath University.
“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you,” runs the old line. Some of rugby's biggest names have fluffed it completely in recent months; Ashton nailed it. He will be the perfect mentor for the mentors.
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It's hard to avoid Lawrence Dallaglio. As it was on the field of play, so it is on Civvy Street: he gets himself absolutely everywhere (he even appears in the opening story of this column).
Now the man who has the habit of turning up in your soup will also be making an appearance in your pasta.
With Paul Newman out of the way, the former England captain has decided to make a play for the spaghetti sauce market, teaming up with Sacla to promote a range of flavours inspired by the recipes of his Italian father, Vincenzo.
You can choose between 'Diavola' (“devilishly moreish and certainly not for the faint hearted”), 'Tricolore' (“an intriguing blend of classic Italian flavours”) and 'Barbera Bolognese' (“a rich and sophisticated twist on the classic Italian favourite”).
The new venture is looking good: that chin already juts from the shelves of Sainsbury's, Tesco and Waitrose, and Salca are hoping that their man's famous lust for victory will rub off on their chopped tomatoes.
“Lawrence does not do anything by halves – he sets out to win,” snarls Clare Blampied, Salca UK's managing director.
“We want to win a significant share of the market. We are after a top three position.”
So there you have it. We await Big Lol's ruck with the Dolmio puppet with great excitement.
And for those of you pondering the obvious rugby-related question, please refrain: fake blood capsules are still by far the cheaper option.
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Former England star Will Greenwood might not be in Stephen Fry's league of twitterers, but we've become fans of his utterings.
No, they may not be very frequent but they are certainly concise.
“classic wasps, 3 chances 3 tries, pace pace pace, get on the bus, sing a song, go home”
Have you ever read a more exact summation of the Londoners' style of play?
Stuart Barnes, Shaggy's fellow pundit on Sky Sports, would gobble up 4,000 words in telling the same tale.
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Keen to pinpoint exactly what ails rugby, the BBC set out to answer the urgent question: Why do sportsmen cheat?
The lengthy essay pondered the dictates of Homer and took evidence from a “senior lecturer at Swansea University”, a “mental performance coach” (sic) and even a “FA tutor and British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences-accredited psychologist”.
Yet still the conclusions were a little wishy-washy.
Surely that burning question of our times can be answered in two words: to win.
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Finally, Leicester Tigers skipper Geordan Murphy might be nursing a serious shoulder injury but his sense of humour is still very much intact.
Welford Road tyro Billy Twelvetrees has been nicknamed by the Irishman, and it is said that the new recruit from Bedford now answers only to '36'. Inspired.
Don't get it? Try that name in an good 'Orish' accent…
Compiled by Andy Jackson